1. Field
Example embodiments disclosed herein relate generally to mobile electronic devices and, more particularly, to input methodologies.
2. Background Information
Numerous types of mobile electronic devices are known. Some devices have a wireless communication capability or may be capable of enabling text input or both.
For those mobile electronic devices providing text input, some such devices have featured a full keyboard such as a QWERTY keyboard wherein each key typically has assigned thereto at most a single linguistic character such as a letter. Such keys may each additionally include one or more other characters such as digits or symbols, or they may include functions and the like, or both. A QWERTY layout would be considered to constitute a full keyboard, and other full keyboard arrangements other than QWERTY (such as AZERTY, QWERTZ, and the like) are known.
For reasons of size, however, it has been desirable to provide some mobile electronic devices with a reduced keyboard wherein at least some of the keys each have a plurality of linguistic characters such as letters assigned thereto. Numerous methodologies have been developed for enabling text input and other input from devices having reduced keyboards. For instance, a multi-tap input system enables unambiguous input by detecting one or more actuations of any given key, with the quantity of actuations of the key unambiguously determining the character of the key that is intended to be input based upon the position of the character on the actuated key. Other systems system involve key chording, whether or not including simultaneous actuations of a plurality of keys, to provide an unambiguous input mechanism for a reduced keyboard.
It is also known to provide software-based text input disambiguation systems that involve comparing an ambiguous text input in the form of a number of single actuations of the keys of a reduced keyboard with words and other linguistic data that are stored in one or more dictionaries or other types of databases stored on the mobile electronic device or available thereto. Such text input disambiguation systems have generally been desirable because they enable single actuations of keys (which are inherently ambiguous due to the plurality of characters typically assigned to any given key) to be converted into text or other input without requiring the numerous additional keystrokes that otherwise would be required in an unambiguous text input system such as those mentioned above that employ multi-tap and key chording, for instance.
It is understood that limitations exist with both full keyboards and reduced keyboards. It thus would be desirable to provide an improved mobile electronic device and method that overcome these and other shortcomings.
Similar numerals refer to similar parts throughout the specification.